They Are Just People

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Lately in my life I've found that I do a lot of things out of habit.  I brush my teeth not because I enjoy it, but because I don't want to pay the dental bills.  I make an effort to be friendly not because it is easy for me, but because I want to have friends.  These might be reasons that do the trick when it comes to getting up the motivation to do the things I "should" be doing, but I'm noticing my motives aren't what I want them to be. 

Sometimes I clean my teeth  because it feels so good to have clean teeth.  Sometimes I find I really, truly, enjoy a person and their company so much that just hanging out with them is fun.  These infrequent occasions when I do something for it's own sake point out to me that the rest of the time (when I have other goals in mind) is...less than it could be.

I have worked for many years to put habits into my life that will help me to grow closer to God and hopefully become a more Christlike person.  It's taken me forever to get to where saying my prayers first thing in the morning comes naturally, and I've finally found a consistent place in my busy schedule to study my scriptures.  I love doing service in the church and holding a calling and it is easy for me to find the time in the week to do it...But I wonder if that is the problem?

Do I read the scriptures to discover the Gospel and let its doctrines distill upon my soul? Or do I do it to keep up the habit?  Do I fulfill my callings out of love for God and the people I serve? Or do I do it to "be a good person"?  Do I pray to my Father in Heaven because I really want to involve him in my life? Or am I just saying the routine words, going through the ceremony with no meaning behind it?

I've been working so hard to get all these things to be easy to do--to make them a natural part of my life--that I think I've forgotten their purpose.  Getting to where these things are easy to do has also made them somewhat half-hearted and routine.  It's not easy, it's hard to do these things.  The point isn't to become a person for whom it is easy to do the things I "should".  The point is to really do them. 

God never expected anyone to get to the point where all the things on the list were checked off every day; as if that were some sort of measurement of perfection. He wants us to love Him and to love each other.  That feeling isn't check-off-able, it's a state of being.  A musician can't just play the "A" in tune, check it off, and call it good. She has to play each note in tune throughout the whole symphony.  Tuning the "A" helps with that, but it isn't the point.


I was listening to the Moth podcast yesterday, and a woman told her story about growing up as an Evangelical/ Mary Kay consultant. She described her days spent finding women who looked as though they could use Mary Kay products and finding people who needed to be saved. She said that at one point in her life she realized her entire existance was as a salesperson: either signing people up for Mary Kay or bringing people to Jesus; that she didn't look at people as people anymore but more as things needing to be fixed; as consumers needing a product.

As an LDS person, that is one thing that I have always been afraid of: that I am sharing this wonderful thing in my life with people out of some kind of duty, rather than out of sincere love for them. 

So, in thinking about it from this perspective, I am realizing that it's not my job to change people or fix people.  Not everyone has the Gospel, but the point isn't to get them signed up, baptized, and checked off, as though that would make them "ok" now.  The point isn't to convince the world.  The point is to love them. 
That, I think, takes a whole lot more work, a whole lot more thought, a whole lot more time than what I have been thinking of as "missionary work"; but people don't need to be fixed.  They need to be loved.

They are just people, and I need to love them.